


Svelvik

by blainedarling



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Fluff, Friendship, IKEA, Literally ridiculous nonsense, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blainedarling/pseuds/blainedarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Zayn should have kicked Batshit Bed Boy out of IKEA when he’d had the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Svelvik

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the following prompt from [this list of au’s](http://blainedarling.tumblr.com/post/115740317162/theappleppielifestyle-list-of-aus-to-consider%22): 'i’m an ikea employee and every day for the last week i’ve had to ask you to leave the store bc you keep coming in and sleeping in the beds seriously are you homeless or something i can call a shelter’ au. In short: it’s possible I’ve lost it, but I needed to get some words down or I was going to scream. And I’ve been spending a lot of time at IKEA/on their website, with moving and all. Meep.

If you asked Zayn what the worst thing about working at IKEA is, he’d tell you it’s the uniform. It scratches at the back of his neck and the mustard shade of yellow looks good on exactly no one. It’s not actually the worst thing–the worst thing is the constant smell of processed meatballs that he’s pretty sure permeates every crevice of his being. But he’ll keep that to himself because the restaurant always gives him an extra scoop of macaroni cheese when he goes in for his lunch and more than once has fed his flatmates for free when they drop by, too. 

 

Today, though, the uniform _is_ particularly scratchy. Zayn’s stacking sheet sets in Bedroom with one hand, the other tugging the collar away from his skin as much as he can. He sighs, rubbing at his slightly red, irritated skin and stuffs the last packet into the shelf.

 

“He’s here again.”

 

Zayn looks up to find Jack stooped by his side, his hands buried in his pockets in defeat. Jack always carries pocket mints with him, the taste capable of temporarily taking Zayn away from the smell of the meatballs–and for that reason, Jack is Zayn’s very favourite person at IKEA.

 

“Who’s here?” Zayn scratches idly at his neck with his fingernails.

 

“Batshit Bed Boy.”

 

“I thought we’d established that was a shite nickname,” Mark says with a huff as he hauls an empty metal trolley behind him. “Dorky Dimply Dude.”

 

“Snoozing Simon,” Jack offers.

 

“What if his name’s not Simon, though?” Mark counters. “Happily Homeless Hottie.”

 

Jack scowls. “He’s not _hot_.”

 

“But he might be homeless,” Mark supplies cheerily and continues past them with a mock salute.

 

At Zayn’s completely blank stare, Jack gestures across the showroom to one of the bedroom set-ups. There’s a tall figure curled up on the bed ( _Brimnes_ ), his back to them.

 

“That’s the fifth time this week. Security says if he has to be escorted out one more time then he’ll be put on a permanent ban from the entire shop.” Jack looks at him with a pained expression. “Can you go this time? Maybe hearing it from someone else will make it have a lasting effect.”

 

Zayn shrugs. It’s not the first time he’s had to confront a customer for inappropriate bed usage in the showroom–granted, usually it’s couples having a quick snog that he has to haul up and off, but the process is essentially the same.

 

He approaches the bed cautiously, surprised by the boy he finds lying on the bed, mouth hung open as he snuffles in his sleep. He isn’t much what Zayn had expected, long limbs tangled up over the top of the sheets, his boots off and tucked neatly next to the foot of the bed. There’s necklaces tangled up around his neck, his loose patterned shirt falling in waves over his torso. There’s a rip in the back of his skinny jeans, revealing a strip of pale skin. He certainly doesn’t _look_ homeless; he looks like someone Zayn might easily see wandering around campus.

 

“Excuse me,” Zayn tries, wringing his hands in front of himself, unsure what to do with them.

 

Batshit Bed Boy–Zayn’s preferred nickname, having established that the homeless generally don’t own boots from Kurt Geiger or have vintage rings stacked up on their fingers–grunts in his sleep and flops onto his back but otherwise doesn’t stir. His shirt falls open over his chest with the movement, the material so thin anyway that Zayn can see the outline of several tattoos. The bottom of the laurels on his stomach peek out of the bottom of the shirt and Zayn swallows roughly and looks away before he does something creepy like tug at his jeans to see if the tattoos continue any further down his body.

 

“Mate.” Zayn gives him a cursory poke to the arm and earns a feeble slap to the hand in response. Zayn looks behind him to where Jack is watching his efforts with a scowl. He gestures for him to continue, to try _harder._

 

Zayn pushes him again, harder this time. “You can’t sleep here. Against store policy. You’ve got to get up.”

 

The boy groans and slowly stirs, eyelids drooping over green eyes that look up at Zayn sleepily. He stretches his limbs out tall so the rings on his hands hit the headboard and his toes wriggle against the footboard. “What was that?” His voice is rough with sleep, thick and low.

 

Zayn feels his stomach curl up tightly, his mouth a little dry. He is struck with the horrifyingly honest thought that if this boy were to drag him down to join him in the bed, he’d probably go willingly, store policy be damned.

 

“You can’t sleep here,” Zayn says finally, regaining control of his basic speech functions. “Get up. Please,” he adds, stepping back to give him room to do so.

 

Batshit Bed Boy sighs and frowns but sits up anyway. He must spy Jack over Zayn’s shoulder because he gives a friendly wave before looking back up at Zayn. “This is the part where you have security take me out of the building again, isn’t it?”

 

Zayn hesitates. He feels a little bad having him forcibly removed when he isn’t really causing much trouble to anyone. The store’s quiet anyway, just a Tuesday in the middle of the summer. And what if he _is_ homeless? He doesn’t want it on his conscious if they kick him out of the only warm, safe place he has to rest his head for whatever few minutes they grant him. Even if IKEA isn’t really the place where he should be doing that.

 

“Listen, is there someone I could call for you?” Zayn asks, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Someone who might be able to put you up for a little while? I know I can’t understand what it’s like but I do want to help. I mean, there are shelters and things in town, I think.”

 

Batshit Bed Boy tilts his head up at him curiously. “I’m not homeless,” he says slowly, the corner of his mouth turned down. “I have a home. A home with a bed in it. It’s an awful bed, though. It smells and it’s missing half of the slats and one of the legs is shorter than the other and the mattress springs have basically gone. The landlord said I could get a new one so long as I sorted it out, and he’d knock it off our rent for next month. But now there’s all this pressure to choose the perfect bed.”

 

Zayn folds his arms across his chest. “So you’re actually going to buy a bed? This bed?”

 

“Yes, although I don’t know yet if I’ll buy _this_ bed. I’ve got to try them all out before I choose one, don’t I? And how am I supposed to know how good a bed is unless I’ve slept on it?”

 

Zayn blinks, speechless. Logically, it makes sense. Logically, more IKEA customers should be dropping in to take a mid-afternoon nap before making their bed purchases. Theoretically, though, Batshit Bed Boy is, indeed, batshit. He realises then that the boy’s still talking and he’s completely tuned out. 

 

“–and I’m often really tired by about three so I thought I’d come in every afternoon and try another bed until I find the right one. I set an alarm on my phone for twenty minutes but, well.” The boy shrugs and reaches for his boots to tug them on, one at a time. “You lot usually let me get in about five minutes before you haul me away.”

 

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just you’re not really allowed to actually go to sleep on them in here.” Zayn clears his throat. “Just how it is, I’m ‘fraid.”

 

The boy beams and stands up. “It’s alright.” He sways on his feet a moment. “So am I allowed to come back tomorrow, still?”

 

“I suppose?” Zayn looks bewildered. “Maybe you could just lie on the bed, though? If your eyes are open then no one can really make you move.”

 

Batshit Bed Boy sighs heavily. “See you tomorrow, then.” He peers at Zayn’s name badge before looking up at him again, his cheeks dimpling deep. “Zayn. See you tomorrow, Zayn?”

 

Zayn nods lamely, a little distracted by dimples and how close the boy is standing. “I’ll be here. See you tomorrow–?”

 

“Harry,” the boy supplies and takes off towards the exit.

 

Zayn returns to Jack after fluffing up the pillows on the bed.

 

“Well?”

 

“He’s not homeless,” Zayn replies. “And his name’s not Simon, either.” 

 

_He is quite hot, though._

 

* * *

 

Harry’s already there when Zayn comes off his lunch break the next day. He’s eyeing up the _Fjell_ model today, just toeing off a different pair of equally scuffed boots when Zayn approaches him.

 

“Remember, eyes open,” Zayn warns.

 

Harry gives no indication to having heard him as he hops up onto the bed and spreads out. “Come lie with me,” he says with a grin.

 

Zayn glances around. The showroom floor is quiet and he’s the only member of staff in Bedroom for the next hour while Jack takes his lunch break. He shrugs and joins Harry, leaving his own shoes on. These beds have seen far worse than his work boots, that much he knows.

 

Harry talks, a lot. He tells Zayn about his flat, about how he got the last pick of the two bedrooms which is why he got the awful bed but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise since now he gets to pick a new one and spend his afternoons in IKEA trying them out. He tells Zayn about his flatmate, who’s pulling pints for the summer at the campus bar while Harry’s taken July off before he works the festival over August. He tells Zayn about his family, about his mum and how she protested to him coming to a university so far north, her baby boy who she’s still managed to visit three times over the course of his first year.

 

And so it goes–Harry comes back, day after day, and he bats his eyelashes until Zayn’s lying down next to him, and he talks. Eventually, Zayn talks, too–tells him of his own family, of his sisters and how he misses their noise and mess even though now he has his two flatmates for that, who he’s been living with for going on two years now. Of how his mum did the same thing even though Edinburgh’s only a few hours north of Bradford, really. Of how IKEA pays well enough but he thinks he might try and look for a different job, soon.

 

Jack looks ready to skin Zayn alive when he first finds him lying with Harry but by the second day of it, he gives up and just puts a half an hour cap on how long the two of them can spend on another bed, staring up at the fake ceiling fittings.

 

* * *

 

If Zayn had been smart, he wouldn’t have told Louis and Niall about Batshit Bed Boy. It had been an offhand comment after the first day they’d met, not even mentioning Harry by name but rather telling his flatmates of the nicknames the boy had garnered over the past week from Zayn’s co-workers.

 

He doesn’t even realise he’s been talking about Harry, quite a lot really, until Louis fixes him with a look as they sprawl over their living room, the window propped open and a beer in their hands. Niall’s got one in each, alternating sips with his legs slung over the other arm of the armchair, inexplicably wearing sunglasses indoors even though it’s not exactly bright.

 

“Niall,” Louis calls out. “On a scale of one to ten, how much do we reckon Zayn wants to bone Bedshit Bat Boy?”

 

“Batshit Bed Boy,” Zayn corrects and takes a sip of his beer. He taps his fingers off his leg absentmindedly–he could use a cigarette but Niall’s enforced a smoking-out-of-the-window-only rule after Louis nearly burned a hole through the cream rug when he was high last spring, and he doesn’t feel like moving.

 

“Right, Betshit Bad Boy.”

 

Zayn sighs heavily and rolls his eyes.

 

“In my professional opinion,” Niall pauses to take a sip from both beers. “Eleven.”

 

“I concur,” Louis declares, jabbing Zayn in the thigh with his toes. “So, it begs the question. Why aren’t you boning Batshit Bed Boy yet?”

 

“There we go,” Zayn mumbles, his eyes glazed as he stares up at the ceiling. “Because. He’s not there for a shag, he’s there for a bed. It’s IKEA, not a brothel.”

 

“Has it occurred to you that buying a bed isn’t usually a two-week long process?” Louis protests, his toes still wriggling away at Zayn’s leg annoyingly. “As in, he could have chosen a bed by now. As in, he’s probably only still coming back because he fancies you too and wants you to bone him.” Louis gasps suddenly. “Maybe he’s a kinky fucker and he wants you to bone him _in_ IKEA! On the bed! Right there!”

 

“That’s called public indecency–there are laws against that sort of thing,” Zayn points out and drains the last dregs from his bottle before contenting himself with blowing into the top, the air rushing around and whistling softly.

 

“Doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it.” Louis waggles his eyebrows.

 

Zayn doesn’t deign that statement with a response; he just groans and closes his eyes, letting his head slump back against the arm of the couch. 

 

“Batshit Bed Boy is a pretty shit nickname,” Niall comments. “What were the other options again?”

 

“Hot Homeless Hippie, wasn’t it?”

 

Zayn sighs. “His name’s Harry,” he says quietly, wincing as Louis starts cackling loudly.

 

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis shrieks, getting up and starting to jump on the couch, which creaks wearily under the force of it. “Harry, oh, _Harry_ , please let me nut all over your– You _fucker!”_  

 

Zayn’s heel lands, just as planned, into Louis’ crotch, sending him tumbling back down onto the couch clutching his balls and whimpering.

 

* * *

 

Zayn finds Harry the next day by the _Svelvik_ , which he’d already tested out earlier in the week. He’s not lying on it this time, either, and he’s got both his shoes on as he skims a hand over the metal bedposts.

 

“Sturdy headboard, right?” Harry asks him as Zayn strolls over.

 

Zayn nods. “Sure. This frame will withstand a lot and it’s one of the easiest to assemble too, if you want to do that yourself.”

 

Harry nods, wrapping a hand around the rung of the headboard. “Right,” he says slowly. “But, like–if I were to tie something to this headboard, it’d be secure?”

 

Zayn hastily disguises his choking sound as a cough. “Uh. What kind of something?”

 

Harry smirks, quirking an eyebrow upwards. “Say, my wrists?”

 

Zayn sinks to sit on the edge of the bed before his knees give out. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, it’d hold. It should hold just fine.”

 

Harry hums and leans over the headboard so his shirt gapes open over his chest, his necklaces tinkling against the metal frame. His back is curved a little and even from where Zayn is sitting, he can see the pretty, plump, peach shape Harry’s arse makes. “Do you think I should get this one?” Harry asks in a gravelly tone.

 

Zayn is pretty sure Harry is flirting with him, now. Before–before, he hadn’t been sure, when they’d just been lying together and talking. It had been amicable. Even when their hands brushed or their toes knocked together, it had been innocent. But this is different and Harry’s eyes are a touch darker than usual and Zayn really wishes his uniform trousers were a little tighter so they’d be less likely to give away where his cock’s half hard.

 

“I think you should get whichever one you want,” Zayn replies.

 

Harry’s shoulders sag and he stands upright. “Right.” He smiles, but it seems tight and forced. “I better call my flatmate, then. He’s stronger than me and he has a car,” Harry explains.

 

“I can help,” Zayn offers quickly, far too quickly. “I mean, I finish my shift in half hour, so I could help you get it home and put it together. If you wanted. Or not,” Zayn stammers, his cheeks flushing as he realises he’s all but inviting himself over to Harry’s flat. “I don’t know why I just said that.”

 

Harry chews on his lower lip a moment before his smile breaks free, his dimples digging into his cheeks. “That would be great. Thanks, Zayn.”

 

* * *

 

Zayn turns out to be little to no help when it comes to the lifting; Harry neither. The both of them stand back as Harry’s flatmate, Liam, hulks the box into the car with a grunt and does the same thing at the other end with the stairs. He eyes Zayn warily before he leaves for his shift at work, reminding Harry quietly that he’ll have his phone on him if he needs anything.

 

But when it comes to the assembly, Zayn excels. Harry doesn’t really try to help beyond lighting a scented candle that he says will help refresh the room now that the old bed has finally gone and putting some music on his speakers.

 

Zayn fits the bed together with a practiced ease, right down to screwing the bedposts onto the four corners and slotting the mattress into place. Harry flops down onto it the second it hits the slats with a satisfied sigh.

 

“Good?” Zayn asks, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. 

 

Harry grins. “Perfect.” He stretches out, cat-like before relaxing. “Zayn,” he whines, pouting. “Come lie with me. Like always.”

 

Zayn doesn’t so much as hesitate this time, kicking his Doc Martins to the floor before joining Harry.

 

Harry turns onto his side to look at Zayn, looping an ankle over his. His fingers come up to play with the collar of Zayn’s shirt that hangs loose at his neck. “I like you better in these clothes,” he comments in a murmur.

 

Zayn plays mock offense. “Do you mean to say mustard yellow and navy isn’t my perfect colour combination? That stings, Haz.”

 

Harry huffs out a laugh. “You’d look good in anything,” he mumbles, burying his smile into the mattress as Zayn tilts his head around to look at him. “What? S’the truth.”

 

Zayn hums and turns onto his side, too, facing Harry. “Can I ask you something?” He says after a moment. His tone is soft but feels loud to him, in the quiet of the room with no other noise than the sound of Harry’s shallow breathing.

 

“Of course.” Harry touches his fingers to Zayn’s clavicle before pulling his hand back. “Ask away.”

 

“Did it really take you that long to choose a bed? Or–” Zayn snaps his mouth shut, leaving the converse of his question to hang unsaid between them.

 

Harry’s cheeks turn a faint shade of pink. “This was the third bed I tried,” Harry says finally. “And I knew I was going to choose it by the time I tried the fourth and realised it didn’t measure up.”

 

“But you kept coming back.”

 

“But I kept coming back,” Harry agrees in a small voice.

 

“Why, Harry?”

 

Harry groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “Because this cute sales assistant who looked way too good in his dumb IKEA uniform agreed to lie down with me and talk about everything or nothing and it became the best part of my day. Even if it did cost me a fortune in bus fares.”

 

Zayn opens his mouth to say something but Harry starts talking again before he can get a word in edgeways.

 

“I wanted to say something or to ask you out but then Nick said you probably just did it to try and encourage me to buy a bed and then piss off but _then_ Liam said he thought you probably did like me, too. And he said maybe I should be a bit more...obvious about it, so that’s why I was all...” Harry trails off and gesticulates randomly. “With the headboards and that today, but then I still wasn’t sure so–”

 

Zayn can’t take anymore so he shuts him up with a firm kiss, knocking Harry back against the bed with the force of it. He sucks Harry’s lower lip into his mouth, nipping at it with his teeth as his hand curls around his hip and he straddles his thighs.

 

Harry’s breathless when Zayn pulls back, his eyelids heavy, his curls a little wild where they’re spread out, stark over the clean, white mattress. “Oh.”

 

Zayn kisses him again, just because his lips are so perfectly flushed red from the press of his own. And again just because Harry’s hands come up to fit into the small of his back, the fingers of one hand dipping into the back of his jeans. And then again just _because_.

 

“For the record,” Zayn mumbles against Harry’s mouth, threading his fingers through Harry’s hair. “I wouldn’t be opposed to you tying me to this headboard, or vice versa.”

 

Zayn was right, by the way. The headboard holds just fine.

 


End file.
